Glass and Gandhi

Today I saw Philip Glass's opera Satyagraha about Gandi's life in South Africa, the latest of the New York Metropolitan Opera productions.  (If you are an opera fan and have not yet discovered the Opera in HD series being played at movie houses all over the world two weeks after opening night, you are missing something very special.)

Satyagraha reminded me of Wagner's operas because it plays on two levels at once. The words sung by Gandi and other characters in the opera are all discourses from the Indian philosophical text the Bhagavad Gita and are sung in Sanscrit. (Surtitles translate the essentials). The story is told in action and improvisational puppetry, performed in this instance by the wondrous The Skills Ensemble.

Satyagraha: Photo form the Metropolitan Opera Website

Sanscrit text and puppetry action sounds weird but it works. The weaving of philosophical questions through the action turns out to the intellectually and emotionally very satisfying. The music is both meditative and thrilling. If you have a chance, go and see it.

Review by Opera and Medicine 
Review by Jeffrey Johnson